Has anyone here successfully acquired a regional accent other than the one they grew up with?

[raccoon]

If so, how did you do it?

[Wounded Bear]

1. Hmmm, spent a year in Memphis...

another 6 months in Tidewater VA. Have had a few southern friends along the way.

I sometimes slip into the drawl.

[LiberalEsto]

2. I've pretty much lost my New Jersey accent

after living in Maryland for 26 years. Born in NYC, grew up in northern NJ.
I guess I'm good at picking up and mimicking sounds; I just tried to talk more like the people around me did.
Maybe being bilingual - Estonian and English - helped too.

[femmocrat]

3. Not exactly, but I can turn it off and on.

I can speak Pittsburghese like a "yinzer" or choose not to, depending on the company I keep!

[liberaltrucker]

13. See post 12

[OriginalGeek]

4. I was born in Florida

And we moved all over the south until we finally settled in TX. I've lived in Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Kentucky, Florida a couple different times and then out to Dallas (where I stayed through High School and then moved back to Florida and have been here over 30 years now). Everywhere I've lived they asked me where I was from because nowhere did I talk like everybody else there.

I have no idea what my accent is although when I visit Texas I get a little Texasy and when we visit my wife's family in Georgia I get a little Georgiay. My youngest brother was born and raised in North Carolina and he clearly sounds like a native North Carolinian.

I say "Y'all" and I call every carbonated beverage a coke until someone needs to get more specific about what kind of coke (Orange, Mt Dew, Dr Pepper...)

A while back I visited my employer's corporate HQ in Portalnd, Maine and during a tour of the plant one of the guys said "Ayuh, Ah knew you wha the Flahda Bah because ya talk funneh..."

I been laughing about that ever since.

[Major Nikon]

5. W tried and failed

He sounds like his dad with half the wit faking a Texas accent, which is pretty much all he ever was and will be.

[CTyankee]

6. I left Texas many years ago and received speech education in drama school to rid

myself of my North Texas accent. Ilearned to say "ten" instead of "tin," for instance. It is common in Texas accents to do that.

[raccoon]

9. "Ten and tin" -- to me they are the same. LOL. nt

[mnhtnbb]

7. If you want to acquire a regional accent, find yourself a dialect coach.

Actors use these professionals all the time to hone a particular accent for a role.

[pinboy3niner]

8. But only Marxists subscribe to dialectical thespianism

[Chan790]

16. A joke that too few here will get. n/t

[oldandhappy]

10. moved from southern Ohio to Iowa in junior high

Kids in new school kept asking me to say words with vowels. Twas a hoot. Went to college in Iowa and have maintained the midwest accent ever since. Think it is easier to change naturally when you are young. I read that people from the midwest were chosen to shout out the firing orders in the civil war because all the other accents could understand! I have taught English as a Second Language and that helps learn to be very clear in pronunciation and enunciation.

[Sanity Claws]

11. Not really

My original regional accent (Queens, NY) softened a bit when I lived on the West Coast but no one would say that I actually acquired a West Coast accent.

[liberaltrucker]

12. After 7 years in Western Pennslyvania....

I've become a "Yinzer" with a Southern drawl.

[KamaAina]

14. I can do several.

Grew up outside Bawlmer (far enough outside that I have to "do" Bawlmerese!), then Conn. (close enough to NY that no one pahks their cah in the Hahvahd Yahd, but there are some radio and TV people upstate who do). I can also do N'awlins (think Harry Connick, Jr.) and Hawai'i pidgin ("eh, you know da kine!&quot

[jmowreader]

15. I can do it by listening to someone for five minutes

Give me a week in a place where they have a distinctive accent, and people from there will believe I'm a local. Unfortunately, it didn't work when I lived in Korea...

[hunter]

17. My wife and one of our children do it effortlessly, without thinking about it.

Give them a few weeks in a new place and they blend right in. Once they've acquired an accent it's always on tap for the next time we visit.

Like it or not, I speak like my grandma. She was born in San Francisco just after the Great Earthquake. Her parents were affluent, white, and proud to be Californian. Sometimes that's not so fun, especially when an elderly California white person keys onto my accent and decides to tell me some vile racist thing they wouldn't ordinarily tell a stranger.

[kairos12]

18. I grew up in Texas. Avoided the accent in everyday life. Can slip to it if I choose to.

I can do a pretty mean Major Kong accent from Dr. Strangelove.

[Rob H.]

19. Nope, and never wanted to

I was a Navy brat growing up with a Southern mom and Northwestern dad and don't sound like I have anything other than a generic American accent because we moved a LOT when I was a kid.

[GOLGO 13]

20. Ran off with an Australian girl back to her home town for 3 years

When I got there I was known as the "bloody New- Yawker".

When I go back home everybody thought I was doing a terrific Oz impersonation. Didn't even realize I was doing it.

[RobinA]

21. Spent 5 Years

in the Pittsburgh area (from Philadelphia suburbs) and picked up the accent pretty automatically and without really knowing it. This was 30 some years ago. I drew the line at yinz and pop, although I used to think "yinz," just not say it. "Pop" is a nonstarter forever. I lost it in about two years once I left, although I still think in "yinz." Especially since my roomate's favorite expression was F*ck yinz-all!! I pick up manners of speaking pretty fast without thinking about it.

My cousin, on the other hand, also from the mid-Atlantic, has lived, worked, married a local and raised a kid in Atlanta for 30 years and doesn't have the slightest southern accent.

[CompanyFirstSergeant]

22. Ayyy, yo....

I was bawn in Brooklyn and I had duh aksent.

Afta ten yeas livvin upstate Noo Yawk......

No so much.